Thursday, November 17, 2011

Tomorrow is Mickey Mouse’s birthday (1928), the anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre (1978), Latvia’s Independence Day (1918), the push button phone premiered (1963) and it is the anniversary of the US Uniform Time Zone Plan (1883). Professor Charles Dowd convinced the railroads to put the four zones in place and because it wasn’t an enacted law, some locations didn’t adopt it until it did become law in 1918.

Light up night is tomorrow (and Saturday). Macy’s unveils their windows (their theme this year is celebrity decorations) at 6, the parade kicks off from Steel Plaza at 6:15 and the lighting of the Unity Tree at the corner of Stanwix and Penn is at 7. Friday’s entertainment at Market Square is Al Dowe and Etta Cox at 5, Jeff Jimerson and Airborne at 6 and Borelli’s Dance Gallery will be performing at 8:30. At the Clemente Bridge (6th Avenue Bridge for you old schoolers) will be NOMaD at 5, John Angel and the Halos at 6:15, No Bad Juju at 8 and the fireworks at 9:38. Saturday the Mascot Skate at PPG Place from noon until 2 and the Horse Drawn Carriage Parade starting at the Convention Center at 6. Entertainment at Market Square will be Joe Negri at noon, Doublshot at 1:45, Vanessa Campagna at 3, Granati Brothers at 4:30 and Bill Price Band at 7:30.

Speaking of the Holidays, I got the cutest hoodies last weekend at the craft show at the Convention Center for my three newest nieces. They’re monster hoodies with fur on the inside of the hood to keep the tykes warm, two horns on the top with a little bird clinging to one horn. So cute. Saturday, St Brendan’s Episcopal Church at 2365 McAleer Road, Franklin Park is having their 12 Annual Holiday Arts and Crafts Show from 9 until 2. They are featuring over 50 vendors and the cookie mart is back. What they do us pile out the cookies by type, you buy a small container for $10 (it holds about three dozen cookies) or the large container for $15 (holds five to six dozen cookies). And you select what kinds of cookies you want. That’s a pretty cool twist to things.

Holidays for you train buffs, the Ohio Valley Railroad Club is hosting an open house noon to 5 Saturdays and Sundays starting November 26 through January 15. They will be closed Christmas Eve and Day as well as New Years Eve and Day. They are located at 1225 Merchant Street Ambridge. The club has been working on this display for the last ten years and it’s theme is large and small industry that’s been located from Pittsburgh to West Virginia in the 1950’s and 60’s. It’s not finished yet, they hope to have the final touches done by next year. Any of you that visited last year will notice the new section they added on Dawhntawn. 🙂 Admission is $5 adults, kids 6 – 12 $1. More info at 724.266.4787.

The Center for Creative Reuse has their very own door now at 214 N Lexington Avenue, Point Breeze. They are still in the same building as Construction Junction, you just don’t have to enter them from the Junction anymore. You can find some pretty interesting things in both places. More info at their web site or 412.473.0100.

I got a new computer last week. What a nightmare. ABSOLUTELY everything I touch gets more and more complicated. I bought the new version of Quick Books, what I wanted to do was to pay for it, get a 2010 or 2009 downloadable version e-mailed to me (so my IT guy could install it) and then snail me a hard copy. The reason I wanted an older version is by now the bugs should have been identified and fixed. They would only sell me the 2012 version and they insisted on installing it on my computer. Two and a half hours later, they were still trying to get it working. Finally we get it up and running, I finished my day and go to bed. The next morning when I tried to turn it on, the data won’t fill in the program. The demo stays up. The next phone call was about 45 minutes. One of the errors was everytime I turned Quick Books on, my computer kept asking permision for Quick Books to connect on line to Intuit and down load updates. As I’m talking to the tech, the way they have Quick Books set up, everytime I open it, it goes to Intuit, the company that makes Quick Books to look for updates. That means Quick Books as constant access to my financial data. The tech told me I could lower my Norton security settings so Quick Books can get right in. The tech said the main reason for this is when Quick Books processes credit card payments, there’s certain things it needs to know. I asked “Are you suggesting I increase my vulnerabilty to outside threats so Quick Books can enter my computer?” #1 I process my credit card through Heartland Payment Systems and am very happy with them. #2 Even though I’m a small guy, Quick Books has no need to know how much money I make or don’t. The tech said that the only way it can work is with this connection. When I threw a fit, she said if it wasn’t set up like this, I would have to go to Quick Books website to search for updates I may need!!!! I again threw a fit and the tech said I misunderstood her, she then claimed that was the optimal way. So we severed Quick Books access to my computer., We chatted the next day again and it seems to have worked since.

Last night when I went to bed, I clicked on my Favorites button and went into Webervations (my on-line reservation system) and processed some reservations. This morning, there was no Favorites button. The print button on the toolbar disappeared as did the Google relevance ranking button.

All of the places I go, like Webervations, has user ID’s and passwords and they are all different. So with the new computer, everywhere I go, I need to figure out my ID’s and input them. Luckily, awhile back I created a file with almost all of my accounts and their security info.

I have a pretty recent version of my data base system, ACT. We loaded the program and when we went to transfer my data from the old computer to the new computer, it wanted a password. The program was programed and I just needed to get the password from ACT and so my tech guy left. The next morning when I contacted ACT, they informed me that I didn’t own a support package and it would cost $60 for them to enter my computer and get the password. I gave them my credit card number, he entered my computer and he didn’t need a password!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I now have an ACT support package. Those of you that have visited, I send out a confirmation letter when you book and a thank you letter when you leave (actually, Razor & RJ does). For the past week, I’ve been able to punt with the e-mail confirmation and thank you’s. I’ve tried going into the templates for these, edited them and came back out and they are not saved to where I tried to save them to. I can type the name of the form letter in the dialog box and pull it up that way, but that’s multiple strokes instead of direct. I accepted a reservation and needed to do a snail mail confirmation today. After stumbling around with this for over an hour, I called ACT. They informed me that the $60 I gave them a couple days ago was for a one time deal. BLOOD SUCKERS. I went back in and putzed with it for a little better than an hour and got it figured out.

I haven’t blogged in a bit because there was some “opportunities” with Word Press. It’s spell check feature didn’t and doesn’t work. I couldn’t toggle between the small screen and full screen modes. The “New Post” Icon disappeared. The File Save Icon dissappeared. They’re still in there, they’re just in new locations that I need to find (and have). I have all this figured out, except the spell check function, so I applogize for any misspellings here.

I like using a 12 or 14 font in my typing, I can’t seem to get Outlook to set either of those as my default setting. It started going down a space and a half when my text goes to the next line (been there, took care of that pretty easy). When I reply to some e-mails, it goes down to the 11 font and the section where I would change it is all shaded and won’t let me in it.

The Parador Inn

What Our Guests Have Said

My daughter Carey could not have picked a more beautiful place to stay with her bridesmaids the day before her wedding and the photos that the photographer captured there are enchanting. Thank you for being so accommodating with all the chaos of the wedding day preparations…hair, makeup, etc. I can’t tell friends and family enough about the Parador.